


It'll Be All Right

by EnglandsGray



Series: All Right [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Pre-Relationship, Sherlolly - Freeform, Short, almost canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28902783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnglandsGray/pseuds/EnglandsGray
Summary: How she had longed for the chance to do this, to feel his hair between her fingers.  Like jet-black liquid silk, it was still wet from the bath.  She ran the comb through, smoothing it all back away from his face.  She would rather be doing almost anything else.A little moment after the fall, where a dreadful prospect becomes a harsh reality.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
Series: All Right [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2121246
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	It'll Be All Right

**Author's Note:**

> **Originally posted as canon compliant but - I am ashamed to say - I have realised it isn’t, quite. Sherlock appears at his own graveside, presumably some days or even weeks after the fall, and his appearance is unchanged. Apologies!**
> 
> Compliant in that it follows the canon in terms of the fall and Sherlock leaving Molly, and everyone, behind. 
> 
> There are echoes of my earlier fic We're All Right At The Moment, which you might like to check out if you could do with a comfort blanket after this!
> 
> Stay safe, all - thank you so much in advance for reading. 
> 
> All rights, all credit and all love to the creators of Sherlock and to the BBC.

London

Sometime in 2012

Committing a crime for which she could be struck off turned out to be the easy part. Tracing the body was straightforward, having it moved to Bart’s and forging the paperwork all happened in a rush of efficiency like any other hurried job. She didn’t hesitate – she knew what she was doing was helping a cause. The integrity of a dead kidnapper and would-be murderer and his end of life paperwork could hardly be compared to the lives of the people she loved, the innocent they could protect.

Looking into the cold, ashen face on the slab and seeing Sherlock was something she would never forget. But it wasn’t that which would haunt her nightmares.

Getting the timing right was terrifying. With just a few moments notice from the confirmation to the point where the body had to hit the ground, and with no reassurance, no clear view above, her heart had never beaten harder. Even if they’d had months to prepare and practise, she could never have been ready to see him fall. The speed was horrific. Her faith in him was total, but there were so many variables… so much could have gone wrong. But it didn’t.

Dressing the body, laying it out and lying; it was just what had to be done. She had been congratulated on her almost-feint, later, her performance skills in the moment she had told the other people present that no, she was fine, she wanted to do it, he would want it to be her, admired. She hadn’t been acting. Somewhere not that far away, some of her closest friends were reeling with shock which would soon be chased up with blinding grief and she couldn’t help them.

The blood on his face and neck, soaking his hair, had been enough to make hers run cold, and _she_ knew it wasn’t real. She watched it seeping away now down the plughole in her bath, as if by unblinkingly watching everything as he slipped away she could preserve more. And still, though her heart ached as if it might split down the middle, it would be something far more innocuous which would finally make that happen.

She lifted the comb from the cup on the shelf below her bathroom mirror. Like she did every evening after she washed her hair. But she never felt as though she was about to cry at the prospect of combing her own hair. Back in her living room, she looked at him sitting on the dining chair, the rug covered with the old sheet from the bottom of the airing cupboard. Ever-perfect posture giving nothing away. But she knew.

How she had longed for the chance to do this, to feel his hair between her fingers. Like jet-black liquid silk, it was still wet from the bath. She ran the comb through, smoothing it all back away from his face. She would rather be doing almost anything else. 

She was prolonging the inevitable, putting it off. She knew that, he knew that. The clippers would go through without combing first – she’d done her dad’s enough to realise. But it was just too much. Every second ticking past was double the length it should be. The silence of the room seemed to increase, as if the world was leeching its essence drop by drop. 

When she had asked him if there was another way, she had known the answer would be no. She did understand why he had to take advantage of this moment, this deception, with the eyes of the country on the hows and the lies. This was his chance to escape. None of the people he was hurtling towards would be taken in, but every last person who he had no choice but to leave behind would never play along. 

She pressed her fingers to her lips, keeping the comb running through the drying curls, and tried to push the brutal sorrow back down. She had offered help, whatever he needed, and she would follow his requests to the letter, no matter what. But where she naively hoped everyone would be pulled, in no time at all, back out of the misery she had helped bring about, in reality they were faced with months, years…

Maybe forever. A world full of horrors which were inconceivable to her was going to dawn for him in just a few hours and the safe space she had provided all this time would no longer be enough. 

She couldn’t stop the tears, but she tried not to sob. She must have forgotten to keep her other hand busy, because she was suddenly aware that it was rested on his bare shoulder, still holding the comb, and was enclosed in his. He didn’t turn to her fully, so she was spared him seeing her crying.

“It’s all right,” he told her, his voice low and quiet, devoid of command and assertion, which made his words equally powerful and brittle. 

She squeezed his hand with her thumb and he tightened his hold on hers for just a moment, before letting her go. He sighed, his shoulders rolling and then relaxing. 

She shook herself. He was putting himself in harms way, leaving his home behind, and all she had to do was wait, secure in the comfort he ensured for her. She reached down to the table beside them.

“It’ll be all right,” she told them both.

In the middle of the night he had called out her name, turning over sharply in the bed and catching her having not left him. Woken up, he’d reassured her that it was fine, invited her to stay. She daren’t take back up running her fingers over the close cropped hairs covering his scalp, though. He lay on his back, eyes closed. She lay on her side, eyes wide open and absorbing every disturbing, beautiful detail. 

And when everything had been cleared away, hidden or binned or collected by the people she’d been told to trust, Molly was left standing alone in the very spot she had been in the previous evening, clutching the comb as if it could mend the heart it had shattered. 


End file.
